Trump the Shout

I have to admit I perplex myself right now. After the two Republican candidates debates, I have to admit I can see myself committing a scandalous voting act. Seeing the possibility of a choice between Clintons, the multiple crooks and liars, and Donald Trump, the rich, often bankrupt, self-centered, and ignorant buffoon, I feel my heart leaning to…Bernie Sanders.

At  least, it’s pretty clear Sanders is not corrupt. At least, he knows enough to have been re-elected to Congress for twenty-five years. He seems sane. As for the “Socialist” label, the word has no fixed meaning any more. The Senator uses it to signal that he is a really, really bad boy, a bit scandalous, even, trust not his rumpled school teacher’s looks. It makes the old boy feel good about himself. It’s kind of cute. It makes no difference. On TV, anyway, a short time ago, the Big Honcha (“a”) of the Democratic Party Central Committee couldn’t even explain the difference between “liberal” and “socialist.” Go figure! N S…!

All the candidates in the second Republican debate of August 6th would be acceptable to me except two. Rand Paul, the chip off the old block, is a closet pacifist like his father. It’s not a good time to experiment with this. Trump, still the leader in opinion polls after the debate is completely unacceptable. For one thing, besides being out of self-control, Trump is a charlatan. He is not a conservative or a Republican. For whatever reason, he is playing Clinton’s game. He is doing it whether or not he ever implements his threat about a third party. I don’t know exactly why he is helping the Clintons. Since this guy changes his mind all the time on major issues it could be anything. It may just be that the prospect of a Clinton administration entirely for sale is irresistible to a man who brags of having bought politicians all his life. (This is just a speculation on my part; don’t believe it unless you have to.) Trump also managed single-handedly to bring the imaginary “war on women”  back front and center through his rude comments about some women. His hoodlum response to the beloved  moderator and host Meghan Kelly might even have put his life in danger. (An immature part of me is hoping it has).

From the first debate, the afternoon debate, I would salvage Carly Fiorina who placed herself ahead of the junior pack through the clarity of her words. Each of those men and that woman would make good conservative presidents. They are all conscientious, intelligent, experienced people. None has managed to get traction. Trump has gathered all the traction to himself  for one reason and one reason alone: He alone knows how to shout.

Trump shouts about illegal immigration (or maybe simply about immigration) and makes up stuff about it and proposes silly remedies to the problems he mis-analyzes. He shouts about de-industrialization, a simplistic myth used to avoid having to explain a more complex reality. Trump couldn’t explain it if he wanted to because he does not understand it. More thoughtful, real Republican candidates have failed for years to rise to the challenge. They contributed to Trump’s shouting through their intellectual absence. Trump also shouts about the loss of standing of the US in the world. Others hear him; they think the problem is real enough; they sense it makes life dangerous. (I think it makes life dangerous for Americans and even more dangerous for others.) They don’t have to be specialists in foreign policy to realize that the nuclear agreement with Iran might just as well have been negotiated by traitors to the US. All they have to do is listen to members of the Obama administration answer ordinary questions about it.

Other Republican candidates seem to have been tamed by political correctness and by a strange sense of fatalism. Republicans keep winning elections in both houses of Congress, locally, governorships and control of legislatures and yet, the Obama multi-directional disaster keeps rolling on. Rank-and-file Republicans have been expecting shouts for a long time now: “Hey, stop that s…, stop it now, NOW!”  Republican politicians are not shouting. They don’t seem to be able to. Here is a man everyone likes, urban, rational, calm Dr Carson. We would be honored to have Dr Carson as a president. It won’t happen.  Can you imagine him shouting the truth? Gov. Walker did not sound at all like the tough guy his record shows he is. Rubio is articulate and bright with excellent manners and there is the rub. Plus, he is too slick for his age. Gov. Bush, a good governor by all counts, has been cowed by the fear of being inadvertently called “Georges  W.” Sen. Cruz comes closest to a shouter among the other candidate but he runs out of steam after two sentences.

Trump has monopolized shouting for the conservative side although there is much doubt about whether he is a conservative (or anything at all). A large fraction of the US population wants shouting, however. They have good reasons to want shouting. The false religion of climate change is fast taking over government even as its slim scientific base is eroding before our eyes. Left-liberals have imposed on America a public discourse overflowing with mendacity, reaching down into abomination. Today, to “respect the health of women” (who live longer than men in the US), and to respect “science,” we are expected to accept the dismemberment of unborn human beings, and, occasionally, of recently born human beings. Why not shout?

Republican candidates will have to man up (including Carly) and learn to shout their forceful disagreement or the Republican Party will lose to the crooks. I say this because there is no way Trump can be elected president. Everyone knows he is only a rich nobody with only one gear but in possession of a wonderfully big, loud voice.